Leeds- getting into and through (by train?) into the future

[YorksLad12]

The most worrying thing for me is seeing talk of bus services 45 and similar... that was renumbered 95 in the 1970s, then it and the 64 were replaced by the 38 and 39 in the 1980s, both now withdrawn. And slightly off topic

After TRU works are done in a few years would it be an idea to link up the hourly York - Leeds stopper with the hourly Leeds - Huddersfield stopper using bi-modes? Thereby linking Thorpe Park with White Rose into the bargain.

I'd connect York-Leeds with Leeds-Doncaster, so you get that second Wakefield-York service per hour. I'm not sure why you'd want to link two business parks.

 

[Bigman]

The most worrying thing for me is seeing talk of bus services 45 and similar... that was renumbered 95 in the 1970s, then it and the 64 were replaced by the 38 and 39 in the 1980s, both now withdrawn. And slightly off topic


I'd connect York-Leeds with Leeds-Doncaster, so you get that second Wakefield-York service per hour. I'm not sure why you'd want to link two business parks.

Yes but don't forget White Rose is a major out of town shopping centre. I would link the York - Leeds to the Leeds - Nottingham to be honest.

 

[YorksLad12]

Yes but don't forget White Rose is a major out of town shopping centre. I would link the York - Leeds to the Leeds - Nottingham to be honest.

Leeds-Nottingham isn't electrified; York-Leeds-Nottingham will have its supporters, giving 2tph York-Chesterfield and potentially longer trains by not using P17. White Rose Station will be a considerable walk from the shopping centre. Less walking than Meadowhall, I suspect, but then there's more *at* Meadowhall to walk for!

 

[matacaster]

Instead of building more at the city centre station (which is pretty constrained - look at how expensive it is to put one additional platform into a space occupied by a car park - it'd be a lot more expensive to build over the river etc) you could free up a lot of platform space by either extending trains through to Neville Hill or a terminus at Thorpe Park (as was planned) - there are six through platforms so even if you write off one as being clogged up by London terminators and one spare then the other four through platforms ought to be able to allow most of the (non-Kirkstall) services to become through trains

Trams will always get suggested but it'll be hard. Tyneside/ Manchester/ Wolverhampton/ Croydon were able to build theirs mainly by either directly converting heavy rail services or by using abandoned rail alignments - Sheffield has struggled comparatively because (other than the Meadowhall line) our trams are stuck in road traffic - I think that any Leeds line would be similarly at the mercy of congestion (e.g. Headingley is an obvious corridor to try to justify light rail to soak up large passenger volumes but how do you run something that isn't going to get stuck in the same A65 congestion?



The problem with the geography of Leeds is that you can either run a relatively "fast" service around the ring road (depending on traffic/roundabouts, of course!) or you can try to link various places together but it's hard to do both.

Some cities have a traditional kind of ring road that takes you through various traditional suburban centres (or where such post-war things have been built next to the ring road) - for example I grew up with the Outer Circle in Edinburgh which ran through the heart of Leith/ Portobello as well as serving the modern shopping centres at Cameron Toll/ Wester Hailes without much of a diversion

Leeds though... the 8/9 were able to serve the modern shopping centres at Seacroft and White Rose with only a minor time penalty, but it's more of a diversion to serve Horsforth/ Moor Allerton/ Garforth/ Pudsey and a lot further (from the ring road) to Armley/ Headingley/ Hunslet etc, plus a lot of fairly empty space between Crossgates and Middleton (the south east of Leeds is the flood plain, so there's not many people living in the land between the A64 and M1).

Dundee/ Glasgow/ Manchester/ Sheffield etc had long running "outer circles" that had the advantage of serving at least one major hospital, but that's not the case in Leeds (the Infirmary is in the city centre and Jimmys is more "Inner City" than "outer circular"

So is a ring road there to properly link the suburban centres together or to link ring road junctions together for people to use as a connection between different radial routes (e.g. the A61 to the A65)?

When I lived in Leeds (twentyish years ago) there were a lot more "radial" routes - e.g. the half hourly 81/82 from Pudsey to Holt Park - but such secondary routes have dwindled away as they have in many First operated "networks" in that time period

Didnt the old trams in Leeds run on dedicated tracks in the middle of the road towards Pudsey?

 

[Bigman]

Didnt the old trams in Leeds run on dedicated tracks in the middle of the road towards Pudsey?

They did up Stanningley Road towards Bramley. The central reservation is very much still visible today.

 

[bluenoxid]

The trams did run up the central reservation from Armley to Bramley Town End. Unfortunately, whilst a lot of the central reservation still exists, it has been affected by changes to junctions, parking and enabling pedestrians to cross the road.

I would recommend a major road reconfiguration if any form of rail based network on this road was considered.

 

[Bigman]

The trams did run up the central reservation from Armley to Bramley Town End. Unfortunately, whilst a lot of the central reservation still exists, it has been affected by changes to junctions, parking and enabling pedestrians to cross the road.

I would recommend a major road reconfiguration if any form of rail based network on this road was considered.

Or put another way, out wonderful council blew millions on putting cycle lanes in that are seldom used. Yes, reconfigure it back to what it was like in tram days.

 

[bluenoxid]

Or put another way, out wonderful council blew millions on putting cycle lanes in that are seldom used. Yes, reconfigure it back to what it was like in tram days.

The cycle lanes are not too bad and more preferred to the previous set up where as a bus passenger, we would struggle to pass some cyclists. These changes took the edges of the road away. The bigger issue are the changes to junctions that have already been made and what is going in now for more formal crossings, which will not be easy to give up.

The other interesting place would be Bramley Town End. I don’t believe that the Stanningley bypass existed the fifties.

 

[JKF]

Yes but don't forget White Rose is a major out of town shopping centre. I would link the York - Leeds to the Leeds - Nottingham to be honest.

It’s a mediocre out-of-town shopping centre, and the only benefit over central Leeds is an easy drive from some suburbs and free parking. Not sure people want to take a lot of shopping on public transport anyway. I’m not certain it will still be there in 20 years, which makes the decision to build a station there a bit baffling unless they’re anticipating using the site for housing or park and ride once it has finished circling the toilet bowl.